Interview with Luis “Pepe” Mujica: “Lula da Silva is aware of the difficulties ahead” in Brazil

Modify a “stretched” Brazil from division so that the “enemy” becomes “opponent”. the titanic challenge of a Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who “is aware of the difficulties that await us”, said the former Uruguayan president in an interview with Agencia EFE Jose Mujica.

“Love has won” was the phrase chosen by Lula to accompany one of the images that went around the world when, after receiving the “faixa” (sashes) from the hands of eight representatives of the Brazilian people, he assumed that which will be his third presidency with a clear message: who will govern “for all Brazilians”.

However, for Mujica this challenge will not be easy Because, as he said in a telephone conversation with EFE, the South American giant has yet to leave behind the climate of tension and constant attacks that characterized both the last electoral campaign and the last part of the four-year government of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022). ).

Unify a “tense” Brazil.

“One of the essential problems is that Brazil is tense due to its political contradiction and the long conservative, reactionary, pejorative, full of insults preaching, over the years, which Bolsonaro has practiced and which he left as one of its consequences. a very polarized society“, says the former senator of the left-wing Broad Front.

Mujica thus underlines what he said in his opinion column on the local M24 radio, where he also stated that “the art of politics is turn the enemy into an opponent“, to explain why promoting this reunification in Brazil will be a complex task for those who have already governed that country for two consecutive terms between 2003 and 2010.

“It’s difficult because this process has penetrated very deeply, it takes a long time and I don’t know to what extent he will be able to carry it out, it is one of the unknowns present in the immediate future; but those obstacles will be present because reality doesn’t change by magic”, reflects who is also considered a point of reference for the Latin American left.

The politician, who at the age of 87 changed his initial plans for the investiture of the Brazilian, with who maintains “an old friendship”following an invitation by the Uruguayan president, Luis Lacalle Pou, to travel together with his fellow former president Julio María Sanguinetti (1985-1990 and 1995-2000), he also underlines that Lula knows well the depth of the wound that divides his people.

“That’s why he said ‘this is the biggest challenge I’ve faced in my life’, he is aware of the difficulties that await him“, he notes.

defend joy

Mujica expresses his point of view on how Bolsonaro’s rhetoric, often singled out by the spread of fake news and who on more than one occasion has discredited the vaccine against covid-19, sowed division and violence in a country which, he says, is culturally he was always “marked with joy”.

“It’s the only country I’ve seen that exists political rallies dancing the sambaa characteristic that is striking when you meet the Brazilian people”, points out the former guerrilla, to which he adds that Lula will have to deal with this aspect “beyond the economic and social aspects” which are at the center of his “reconstruction” Project of the country .

“For Brazil to recover its emotional temperature of life is essential because, as you said, there cannot be two Brazils. It is part of recovering as a society, as a country, to recover that tone and leave behind this attitude of hate and attack in a country whose tradition is quite the opposite”, concludes the Uruguayan.

The author is an EFE journalist

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